Effects of Transitional Bilingual Education, Two-Way Bilingual, and Structured English Immersion Programs on the Literacy and Oracy of Spanish-Dominant Children*

Grantee: Johns Hopkins University

Key Staff:
Robert Slavin
Margarita Calderon
Nancy Madden

Research Questions:

• What are the relative effects of teaching reading, writing, and oracy to Spanish-dominant students in structured English immersion versus transitional bilingual education or two-way bilingual education, from kindergarten to grade 3, on English literacy, oracy, vocabulary, comprehension, writing, and other variables?
• How do the effects of structured English immersion versus the other two instructional strategies vary according to child and home factors such as race, gender, initial skills in Spanish and English, initial cognitive skills, home language use, family structure, and family resources?
• How do the effects of structured English immersion versus the other two instructional strategies vary according to school and teacher factors such as quality of program implementation, classroom oral language environment, teacher language proficiency, use of Spanish or English in parts of the day other than literacy periods, and district and state policy environments?

Design: Approximately 545 Kindergarten children who are Spanish-dominant English language learners have been randomly assigned to conditions within schools. Three conditions are being studied: structured English immersion; transitional bilingual education; and, dual language education. Two sets of schools have been recruited. In one set, a total of 387 students in 10 schools have been randomly assigned to receive either the structured English immersion or the transitional bilingual program. In the second set, approximately 158 students in 5 schools have been randomly assigned to either structured English immersion or dual language instruction. The first cohort of Kindergarten students have been followed over a four-year period, Kindergarten to Grade 3, and we are continuing to follow them, to go past the point when they have fully transitioned to English only instruction. To increase statistical power, the study sample has been increased by adding new Kindergarten cohorts in 3 years of the study.

Design Modifications: As a longitudinal study, this research has suffered the loss of 5 schools due to changes in policy and personnel among school and district-level administration. Our current study includes approximately 350 children in 7 schools for the transitional bilingual versus English immersion comparison, and approximately 100 children in 3 schools in the dual-language versus English immersion comparison. A fifth year of data collection was added in order to maximize the number of children that were followed through third grade (when any transition into English is likely to have occurred).

Duration: 6 years (October 1, 2003 – September 30, 2009)

Reports: Final project progress report due December 31, 2009.

Current Status: (October 2009)

Fourth year data have been analyzed with the following results:

• On the PPVT and its Spanish equivalent (TVIP), kindergartners in transitional or dual language programs performed significantly better in Spanish and worse in English than their English immersion counterparts.
• In the transitional study, by third grade, when almost all children had made the transition to English-only instruction, children from the transitional model outperformed their English immersion peers on only one Spanish measure (Identificacion de letras y palabras). Children from the English Immersion group outperformed their transitional peers on all English measures except the letter-word ID.
• In the dual language study, data through second grade indicates a similar pattern.

Conclusions to Date:

• Children in English Immersion programs seem to acquire English reading skills without suffering the loss of their Spanish pre-reading and reading skills.
• Children in both transitional and dual language programs, by third and second grade, respectively, have not quite caught up to their peers on English reading measures.
• These findings should be clarified with the addition of spring, 2009 data collection.

An additional round of data collection was performed in spring, 2009. These data, from grades 2, 3, and 4, are currently being analyzed.

* This grant was awarded under the English Language Acquisition Evaluation Program, CFDA 84.305P